Version: 0.1 | Status: preregistration template; no experiment conducted | Investigator: Biswajit Jana
Definition first: actual causal structure, not an apparent coordinate speed
| Let transmitter event A contain the generation of a newly sampled, authenticated random message X. Receiver event B is timestamped when Y becomes locally decodable. For a specified measured or modelled physical spacetime (M,g), the strong signal-causality question is whether B lies outside J_plus(A), the actual metric’s future causal set. In a fixed Minkowski comparison, a necessary spacelike indicator is c^2(dt)^2 - |
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dx |
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^2 < 0; this is not a globally sufficient test for an arbitrary curved metric or a metric whose sources are still hypothetical. |
An early arrival against a reference/background Minkowski light-travel time does not establish causal violation if a candidate curved metric has a shorter physical null route. Before any FTL assertion, calculate causal relationships in the candidate actual g_(mu nu), and rule out the carrier, clock, path or synchronization being mischaracterized.
Null and alternative
| H0: Without an allowed ordinary timelike/null channel, intervention on the sender’s fresh X does not alter the receiver-only pre-causal-horizon Y distribution; I(X;Y_pre |
predeclared side information) = 0. The receiver can exhibit correlations due to common pre-shared data, but not selectable fresh information. |
H1: Fresh sender-selected X changes receiver-only Y outside J_plus(A), after all permitted pre-shared state has been conditioned on or controlled, side channels eliminated and independent replication performed.
A low permutation p-value alone establishes neither physical propagation nor a valid definition of spacelike separation.
Research instrument and experimental controls
- Blind, last-moment message selection: Generate random X only after both endpoint devices are sealed, clock sync is frozen, and the legal causal horizon is predeclared. Cryptographically commit to seeds and preserve sealed, append-only hardware event logs; keep secrets private until analysis.
- Clock and distance audit: Trace clock calibration; measure event times in an explicit reference frame; conservatively propagate timing, spatial and ephemeris covariance. Record lower uncertainty bound on what counts as a spacelike/causally disconnected interval.
- Separated intervention: Randomize transmit/quiet/decoy conditions; demonstrate the receiver cannot infer transmit condition from shared power supplies, cables, clock triggers, electromagnetic leakage, storage/network services or accidentally time-correlated schedules.
- Strict pre-horizon cut: Filter data using a predeclared causal arrival boundary. No post-hoc selection, future conditioning, leaked message file, shared predictors or delayed classical disclosure.
- Receiver-only decoding: Lock the decoder before seeing test labels; measure BER, full confusion matrix and conditional information, not just one favorable correlation. Report runs with no decoded packet.
- Null distribution: Use time-preserving permutation/block permutations, synthetic independent controls, negative-message controls, repeated seeded baselines and independent blind holdout days. Reuse no random seeds across physical trials. Correct multiple comparisons; preregister alpha and minimally important effect.
- Positive controls: Show the same payload decoded over an ordinary optical/RF path only after its valid light-time. Test a deliberately leaky side channel and demonstrate the leak audit detects it.
- Independent replication: Give an outside team instrument schematics, code, and preregistered recipe; they must reproduce on independently instrumented hardware before any extraordinary claim.
- Chronology: For any controllable superluminal transport candidate, test reversed-message order in transformed frames and examine whether the transport permits a tachyonic antitelephone or closed causal curve. Requiring physical global causality is additional to local timing tests.
Candidate mechanism dossier requirements
| Candidate |
What it can establish now |
Falsification / critical missing check |
| Optical photon counting, PPM, OOK, single photons |
Ordinary causal, photon-efficient communication |
Cannot bypass actual null cone; benchmark data/energy only |
| Pre-shared predicted images / digital twins |
Reduces transmitted residual bits |
With no fresh residual, receiver obtains no new event information |
| Entanglement-only or local quantum operations |
Correlations; Bell marginals obey no-signalling |
Bob’s reduced density matrix invariant to Alice’s chosen local operation |
| Quantum teleportation |
Conditional state-transfer protocol |
Classical bits required to choose corrections; no prelight arrival |
| Pulse-peak/superluminal group velocity |
Signal-shape evolution |
Must measure fresh information front and energy, not envelope peak |
| Neutrinos, gravitational or other massless carriers |
Different absorption/propagation engineering |
Established local causal propagation remains bounded by null cone |
| Hypothetical tachyonic signal |
Test causality mathematics |
No observed controllable tachyon channel; evaluate temporal loops |
| Traversable wormhole / metric corridor / Hyperwave |
GR toy metric, causal routes under assumed sources |
Full T_mu_nu, source feasibility, quantum inequalities, horizon/chronology and global causal structure |
Speculative GR validation gates
- Show the exact metric g_mu_nu, signature, units, all asymptotic/initial/boundary conditions, nondegeneracy, causal orientation and source-support region.
- Independently derive the connection, Riemann and Ricci tensors, scalar curvature, Einstein tensor, conservation (covariant divergence of T), and compare two implementations in simple analytic limits.
- Infer T_mu_nu = c^4(G_mu_nu + Lambda g_mu_nu)/(8 pi G) for a stated convention; do not substitute a metric-only stress tensor for a realizable laboratory matter model.
- Quantify WEC/NEC/DEC/SEC for observer/null-direction families that are not restricted to a few convenient directions; a positive Eulerian observer value alone does not establish WEC.
- Require known or explicitly hypothetical constitutive/source dynamics; check stability, causal control of creation/removal, energy budgets, quantum energy bounds, cutoff regime, and local/global chronology.
- Reproduce literature prior art (Hyperwave, warp-drive taxonomy, NEC critique) before claiming a new technique. The literature includes mathematical metrics; it does not provide a validated manufacturable FTL transceiver.
Deliverable classification
Every finding gets one label: established measurement, source-grounded calculation, reproduced simulation, unvalidated hypothesis, or falsified hypothesis. Maintain metric definition, source URL/DOI, numerical parameters, source version, software commit, uncertainties, and blinded-trial metadata.
Present conclusion: No verified transport of newly chosen information outside the actual future light cone. The project is an open falsification-and-design programme, not a proven FTL signalling device.